Information Collaborators: Improve the knowledge content and expertise of an organization and other information workers (especially information consumers). These are often new & motivated information workers, subject matter experts, or researchers. The problem with this group is they can't make a decision by themselves.

"We need to build the buffet table that has all these components in it, so the BI user can stand there with their tray and pick and choose," said Claudia.

Guiding principles of self-service BI:

Make BI tools easy to use

Make BI results easy to consume & enhance

Make DW solutions fast to deploy & easy to manage

Make it easy to access data

On technology solutions, Claudia said that no single technology has all the necessary attributes.

The #1 inhibitor to self service, according to mostly IT responders to TDWI survey, was lack of skills in business users. Also cited was lack of data quality, control, and governance. "No demand" was NOT an inhibitor!

Governance does have a role in self-service BI. This is a big issue. It's different than in the past though.IT is under the misconception that it has to control the information assets that the business people use. They got blamed for bad data, security breaches, compliance problems — even though these weren't their fault. Not all data has to be governed, but some does. IT needs monitoring and oversight capability, not control.

The Line of Business may need to take on some of the previously traditional central IT roles such as security. Governance can be aided by customizable BI components, such as parameterized reports, report templates, or stored analyses.